Chart Showing the
Four Step Process of Discovery as applied to Case D OLCOTT'S ACCOUNT OF MEETING A MASTER ATTHE GOLDEN TEMPLE
IN AMRITSAR ON OCTOBER 26, 1880

What is your
interpretation of Olcott's testimony about this encounter with this Master?

Step 1
Unexplained
experience, phenomenon

Step 2
Hypotheses, possible explanations for experience

Step 3
Evidence (collected & analyzed)

Step 4
Interpreting and drawing conclusions

"'...at a shrine where the swords, sharp steel discs,
coats of mail, and other warlike weapons of the Sikh warrior priests are exposed to view
in charge of the akalis, I was greeted, to my surprise and joy, with a loving smile by one
of the Masters, who for the moment was figuring among the guardians, and who gave each of
us a fresh rose, with a blessing in his eyes...." (Old Diary Leaves, Volume
III, pp. 254-255, 1974 printing.)

In Olcott's own handwritten diary, the entry for
October 26, 1880 reads:

"...In the afternoon we went to the Golden Temple again & found it as lovely
as before. Saw some hundreds of fakirs & gossains more or less ill-favored. A Brother
there saluted H.P.B. and me & gave us each a rose."

1. Olcott perhaps was simply lying and this
whole experience never actually happened.
2. Olcott was possibly duped by a confederate hired by Blavatsky to
personate a Master.
3. Olcott was perhaps hypnotized by Blavatsky to see this
"imaginary" adept.
4. Olcott was maybe under the influence of drugs & hallucinated
the whole experience.
5. Olcott possibly met a real physical man who was an adept.
6. ??????????
7. ??????????
etc.